Chapter 6 - BLOOD AND SECRETS
The transition from a fake engagement to something dangerously real happened in the span of a heartbeat. It was a rainy Tuesday, three days after the Gala. We were driving back from a dinner with a local politician when the heavy SUV suddenly swerved. Tires screeched, metal crunched, and the deafening sound of automatic gunfire shattered the windows.
“Get down!” Nikolai roared, unbuckling his seatbelt and shoving me to the floorboards, covering my body with his own. The world spun in a chaos of shattered glass and shouting. Rocco and Dante returned fire from the front seats. I was trapped beneath Nikolai, feeling the heavy, steady thud of his heart against my back. He wasn't panicking; he was calculating.
“Russians,” Nikolai barked to Rocco over the gunfire. “Julian must have sold them our route to prove he has teeth.”
In less than two minutes, the ambush was neutralized by the trailing security cars, but the silence that followed was heavy with adrenaline and blood. Nikolai pulled me up, his hands frantically checking me for wounds. “Evelyn. Evelyn, look at me. Are you hit?” His voice cracked—the first time I had ever heard the unshakeable boss lose his composure.
“I’m fine,” I gasped, clutching his lapels. But when I pulled my hands away, they were slick with blood. A bullet had grazed Nikolai’s shoulder, soaking his white shirt in crimson.
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“It’s nothing,” he grunted, though his face was pale. Back at the penthouse, I refused to let the syndicate doctor do all the work. Once the wound was stitched and the doctor dismissed, I sat on the edge of Nikolai’s bed, gently cleaning the dried blood from his collarbone with a warm cloth. He watched me in the dim light, his defenses completely stripped away. “You shouldn't have to see this,” he murmured.
“I told you I wasn't afraid of the dark, Nikolai,” I replied softly. He reached up, cupping my cheek with his uninjured hand, his thumb tracing my jawline. The air between us grew impossibly thick, the pretense of our arrangement burning away in the aftermath of survival. He pulled me down, and our lips met in a searing, desperate kiss—a fierce collision of survival, anger, and undeniable desire.
